Applied Ecology

The challenge our civilization faces is to learn new ways of meeting our demand for resources in ways that tie in with what ecosystems can sustainably provide. Humanity has the amazing capacity to learn creative new solutions to problems we face and permaculture provides us with a thinking system to apply these creative solutions to providing our resources in a way that will regenerate the land.

In this module we explore how ecological systems are organised and through that understanding draw inspiration for the better design of our agricultural landscapes.

Some of the ideas covered in this module include the structure and composition of ecosystems, the flow of energy through food webs, the recycling of matter within Earth's spheres and underlying these complexities the underlying strand of how ecological systems organise themselves in a balanced complexity to most efficient use of available resources in a way that stabilises those resources and supports the continuation of life. It is with these structures in mind that we need to design our own structures to arrive at the same resilient productivity.

Introduction to ecology module

Earth's Spheres

Photosynthesis and Respiration

Food Webs

Recycling Matter

Ecological Patterns

Suggested Homework

Ok a great way to share homework you do is to film yourself describing something on your smart phone and upload it on youtube. You can then share the link to that video by adding it to under this weeks Facebook group homework post. We can then all share in our collective creativity :)

By the way if something inspires you please post it to the Facebook group. I will try to add more myself - life gets busy. Agaiun to access the Facebook group hit the link at the top of the Agrifutures homepage and ask to joint the group, I can then add you :) There are some aother permaculture heavy weights from around the world in there so the more inspiring your post the more likely we can get some good feedback.

Ok so homework this week............... An observation of an ecosystem. What can you describe? The habitat, what lives there, what kind of interactions can you see, what are the producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers and tertiary consumers, how does the organisation of that system create some balance to allow that system to be resilient and continuously productive. Or anything that inspires you to share :)

Applied Ecology EBook

Resources

Ecological Patterns

There are three main ecological patterns of interest in permaculture design: stratification, zonation and succession. We will explore these patterns in greater detail when they are applied within different context of permaculture design. Here we will outline the intend within ecology of organising biological systems with these patterns.

Stratification = The layering of living things within an ecosystem, such as the layers of plants within a forest (ground cover, shrubs, small trees, large trees, vines etc). This is a way ecologist divide organisms into different groups based on their organisation by height within a shared ecosystem.In a similar way we can design food forests with a multi-layered canopy. This allows us to capture lights at multiple layers and use that larger catchment to be able to create for products of photosynthesis (berries, nuts, fruit, herbs etc).

Zonation = A way or categorizing living things within an ecosystem by dividing them on the basis of distance from an edge between two systems. For example as you go deeper into the forest from the edge there will be different communities of plants adapted to being at the edge of the forest or deep within it. Another example is a rocky shore where biological communities will be different depending upon how close to the shore they are and expose during high / low tides.

Succession = Changes in biological communities over time. When an ecosystem is disturbed by some natural or man made event there is a predictable succession or change in biological communities that will occupy a site and impact that site in ways that will change what communities live there. This dynamic changes in communities over time result in an increasing complexity and diversity of species, resulting in the changes slowing down and becoming more stable over time. Until the next disturbance puts it into a state of flux and change. In permaculture designs we make use of our knowledge of the changes in management of weeds, predict changes in plant communities and as a management with grazers to maintain a system at a point of succession.

Stratification

Zonation

Succession

Trophic Cascades

Trophic cascades describe the impact a species has throughout its ecosystem. These are most evident when a species is either removed or introduced to an area, resulting in a noticeable changes in the abundance or behaviour of other species within that ecosystem. A trophic cascade refers to how this impact is felt on multiple levels within a food web from producers to tertiary consumers due to the changes within one effected species being passed on to other species through changes in their feeding interactions.

The two stories below illustrate this phenomena and the wide impacting consequences changes in biological communities can have.